DAY 13 OF 13 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN

13 FUN HALLOWEEN PICTURE BOOKS

Since I've been working on some picture book manuscripts lately, I thought it might be fun to share some fun reads for the youngest audience members. These are all guaranteed to please and are not too frightening. 

1. Big Pumpkin – Erica Silverman, S. D. Schindler – All witch wants is a pumpkin pie for Halloween. But her pumpkin is too big for her to move. Her friends all volunteer to help, but none of them can budge the heavy pumpkin. Then the solution to the problem arrives in an unlikely hero.

2. Bone Soup – Cambria Evans – a retelling of Stone Soup with grizzly ingredients. When the hungry skeleton comes into town, he’s hoping for a feast, but no one wants to share their food with the greedy goblin. So he uses trickery and persuasion to use the town folk to help him concoct a savory meal for all of them to share.

3. Click, Clack, Boo!: A Tricky Treat – Doreen Cronin  & Betsy Lewin – Click,Clack, Moo with a Halloween theme. The animals are out at the barn, ready for some Halloween fun, but Farmer Brown wants to curl up in his footie jammies and call it a night. Guess who wins the battle.

4. Five Little Pumpkins – illustrated by Dan Yaccarino – This song is a favorite with all the preschoolers and kindergartners, and the fun illustrations make it even more enjoyable.

5. Goodnight Goon – A Petrifying Parody – illustrated by Michael Rex - A little werewolf can’t go to sleep so he tells everyone and everything goodnight. Then a mischievous goon wreaks havoc.

6. In the Haunted House – Eve Bunting, Susan Meddaugh – Rhyming text and a fun story of what it’s like to walk through a haunted house. The identity of the two moving through the house isn’t revealed until the very last page.

7. Room on the Broom – Julia Donaldson, Axel Scheffler – Another fun rhyming tale that centers around a witch and her adventures on her broom. A great opportunity to teach the rewards of sharing and helping others.

8. Scary, Scary Halloween – Eve Bunting, Jan Brett – Someone – or something – is watching a parade of frightening creatures pass by. Soon more eyes begin observing this scary scene. A cute tale with a possibly surprising twist.

9. Ten Timid Ghosts – Jennifer O’Connell – When a witch moves into the ghosts’ house, she doesn’t want to share, so she frightens them off one by one by disguising as different scary monsters. But the last ghost isn’t quite so timid, and when he discovers the truth, he tells his friends, who are now angry ghosts. Do they get their house back? You’ll have to read it to see

10. There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat – Lucille Colandro, Jared Lee – Another parody that is loads of fun during this haunting season. And the fact that she doesn’t die should make it easier to swallow.

11. Where’s My Mummy – Caroline Crimi, John Manders – In an effort to delay bedtime, Baby Mummy asks for another game of hide and shriek. He comes across all kinds of scary creatures, but it’s an unlikely fright that has mommy mummy running to his rescue.

12. Who’s There, Little Hoo? – Brenda Ponnay – The young owl is experiencing his first Halloween, and not sure he’s brave enough. But every time there’s a knock on the door, he discovers one of his friends dressed in a costume. Cute for the youngest audiences.

13. Who’s There on Halloween? – Susan Hagen Nipp, Pamela Conn Beall, Charles Reasoner – Each page has clues as to which Halloween creature is on the following page.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Cordelia Dinsmore